


Cardinal Directions

by pinksnowboots



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Mild canon divergence, Multi, Polyamorous Soulmates, Polyamory, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 23:24:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9407468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinksnowboots/pseuds/pinksnowboots
Summary: When a person turns twenty, a compass appears on their wrist, arrow pointing towards their soulmate rather than to the North.Since he was a child, Ryoma has been fascinated by soulmates and compasses. He's listened to all of Orochi's stories dozens of time, and spent countless hours imagining what his own soulmate might be like. By the time he turns twenty, he think's that he's considered every type of possibility, but nothing prepared him for the shock of seeing twin compasses appear, one on each wrist.





	1. Ryoma

**Author's Note:**

> I promised myself that I'd never try to write a soulmate AU because I have so many problems with soulmate AUs even though they're a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. They take the surprise out of things, they're often impractical and overdramatic, and they erase the possibility of platonic relationships and polyamory. 
> 
> And yet, for all my problems with them, I found myself with a vague idea for a soulmate AU stuck in my head and I had to write it. Luckily, it's a polyamorous soulmate AU that was stuck in my head, which makes things a little easier for me.
> 
> Anyway, in case it's not clear from the story, the idea behind the soulmate thing is as cheesy as it is in most soulmate AUs. In this universe, when you turn twenty, a compass appears, usually on the inside of your wrist (don't think too hard about the logistics here), which always points in the direction of your soulmate.
> 
> The only other thing that I think is maybe important to mention is that I'm tweaking the canon a little bit, especially when it comes to relative ages of the characters. I do have an idea of who is what age, but it's hard to spell it out in fic. If you have a question, let me know and I'd be happy to help. 
> 
> Also, this is mostly canon, compliant, but again with a few tweaks. The biggest is that Laslow, Odin, and Selena don't arrive in the Fates universe before all the events of the game start happening, but during them.

Ryoma learns about soulmates when he is six from Mikoto, who is not his mother but treats him as if he is her son. He realizes later what a feat it is, taking care of five young children, four of whom are not her own.

“Mikoto, what’s that on your arm?” He asks, pointing to the compass on her wrist with the unabashed curiosity of childhood that being a prince hasn’t squashed out of him yet.

Patience seemingly infinite, Mikoto obligingly pats the seat next to her on the couch, lets him get comfortable before asking, “Do you know what a compass is, Ryoma?”

“A compass…” Ryoma wracks his brains, wanting to impress Mikoto, “is something that helps you find your way. It points in the right direction!”

Mikoto smiles at how proud Ryoma looks.

“Close. A compass has an arrow that always points North. If you know where North is, you can find your way no matter where you are.”

“Oh.” Ryoma nods as if he understands, although he’s not quite sure where North is or why it’s important. “So does the compass on your arm point North?”

“This compass is a little different. Every person has a compass like this, but the arrow doesn’t point North.”

Mikoto has to hold back a laugh as Ryoma’s gaze darts to his wrist, as if a compass may have appeared there without him noticing.

“You don’t have one yet because you’re too young, but yours will appear when you turn twenty. As I was saying, the arrow doesn’t point North, it points towards your soulmate.”

“So it helps you find the person you’ll fall in love with and marry?” Ryoma asks, more excited about the magical aspect of the compasses than the actual soulmates.

“If you follow it, then yes, you might find them. But a soulmate might not be the person you marry. A soulmate isn’t always someone you fall in love with, but they are someone who will never completely leave your life or your heart, no matter what happens.”

Ryoma nods even though he’s only half-listening, mind working too fast to process all this information. “So does your compass point to father?”

“No,” Mikoto saying, looking the slightest bit sad. “Every person has only one soulmate. Your father and your mother were soulmates, so his compass will always point to her.”

Ryoma inspects Mikoto’s compass closely, fascinated by how the compass itself is delicate and beautiful, but the red design surrounding the compass is almost mechanical in appearance and looks strange against her skin. Ryoma wonders why he’s never seen her compass before, and suddenly the Hoshidan fashion of wearing thick bracelets makes a lot more sense.

“But,” Mikoto continues, brightening. “I do love your father very much and he loves me, and we both love you very, very much!”

She sweeps Ryoma up into a hug, kindly but firmly ending the conversation. But the matter of compasses sticks in Ryoma’s mind, and he immediately goes to tell Hinoka everything he’s learned.

Hinoka isn’t as fascinated as Ryoma, but she gets bored easily and tagging along as Ryoma asks all the castle servants about their compasses is certainly something to do, and she has to admit that it’s interesting to see how every compass is slightly different and to watch the arrows move, tracking the person’s soulmate no matter how far away they are.

* * *

 

As Ryoma grows, so does his fixation with the compasses. Even though Hoshidans are modest and tend to cover their compasses in public with long sleeves or thick bracelets, it seems amazing to him that he spent the first seven years of his life not knowing that compasses or soulmates existed.

Ryoma isn't much for reading, so he seeks out information through stories. Mikoto has some of the best stories about soulmates, and Ryoma begs her to repeat them over and over again, long after his siblings have grown bored with hearing them.

As Ryoma grows older, he begins to realize that whenever Mikoto speaks of soulmates, her eyes become distant and her mouth tightens, as if straining to hold back deeply buried sorrow. He doesn't know the specific source of her sorrow, but he suspects that it has to do with the fact that her soulmate is not his father.

Mikoto has always held herself with a quiet kind of grace that he now recognizes as sadness, and he doesn't want to contribute to that, so he seeks out other storytellers. As the prince, people in the palace have to listen to him, and since he's still enough of a child that he's allowed a few follies, most will humor him. Luckily, Mikoto's young retainer Orochi has more stories than Mikoto and she knows all sorts of lore about soulmates that may or may not be true. Even more importantly, Orochi loves to tell stories, to see her audience transfixed, and Ryoma soaks it up.

Takumi asks if he has a crush on Orochi since he's spending so much time with her. Hinoka tells him she didn’t know he was such a romantic. Sakura is his best ally; she's still too young to tease, and she's so fascinated by Orochi's beauty and magical powers that she often sits on Ryoma's lap and plays with Orochi's tamer charms as Ryoma listens to her stories.

Ryoma does not have a crush on Orochi, and he is not really a romantic per se, but as the high prince of Hoshido almost every aspect of his life is controlled by his duties to his family and his country. There is not much mystery in his life, not much spontaneity, and very few choices he can make that are not about trivial matters. He is controlled by his position, and he does resent it sometimes, like on the days that he goes from tutor to tutor and spends every lesson daydreaming about running off and becoming a mercenary, or the days where he barely sees his father because he’s stuck in meetings for hours on end and doesn’t have time to eat, let alone spend time with his children.

Or the day when his father dies and Corrin is kidnapped, and he realizes that he too may die young, his children may be stolen from him, simply because he was born to be king of Hoshido.

Somehow, his own lack of control of his own life makes the idea that the universe is controlling everyone appealing, at least when it comes to soulmates. No matter who you are or the circumstances of your birth, you have a soulmate, and the universe has given you the means to find them. It’s control, but it’s a benevolent type of control, and Ryoma yearns for benevolent controlling forces in his life to counteract the cold weight of the expectations of a high prince of Hoshido. 

Well, he actually yearns for freedom, but freedom has never been his destiny, and he yearns for it in the wistful, detached way that one yearns for something that they don't truly understand.

He also secretly entertains the idea that his soulmate, whoever they may be, will not be the ideal consort for a king, proving that there are some things that the expectations on royalty cannot control. Ryoma has nothing against his family, but just like the people of Hoshido, they all have expectations for him and sometimes he feels like he's suffocating. On days where he can't breathe, he imagines his soulmate being someone completely unsuitable for a prince. He fantasizes about his siblings being concerned about how his soulmate will handle being one of the rulers of Hoshido, of the people of Hoshido murmuring, scandalized, as he and his soulmate make appearances at festivals. 

The specifics of his imaginary soulmate are unimportant. Sometimes they are a thief, sometimes a prostitute, sometimes an assassin hired to kill Ryoma until they realized that their compass was pointing straight at their target. Occasionally Ryoma will entertain the idea that his soulmate is a travelling performer, a jester, even a Nohrian. But the most important part is that even if his subjects, his friends, his family, disapprove of his soulmate, they will be forced to accept them as Ryoma's partner.

Well, they’ll be forced to accept them or Ryoma and his soulmate could go into exile and become mercenaries, and then Hinoka could be queen. On his worst days, Ryoma thinks that doesn’t sound too bad.

 

 

Of course, it's not nearly as simple as it is in his fantasies. When Mikoto first explained soulmates to him, it seems so simple, but Orochi has dozens of stories to attest to the complexity of the whole phenomenon.

One of Ryoma's favorite stories is the one about two female thieves of great renown who found out that they were soulmates when they tried to rob the same temple. They found their compasses pointing at each other as they both reached for a golden statue. Their hands knocked together, and suddenly they each found the other's name emblazoned on their wrist, curling around the edge of their compass.

(When soulmates first touch, Orochi tells him, new marks almost always appear on the skin around their compass. The ways a person's compass looks tends to reflect their personality, but the new marks reflect that of their soulmate. Ryoma thinks back to the red marks around Mikoto's compass and wonders, again, just what kind of person her soulmate must have been.)

The two thieves were so shocked that one jumped backwards and the other yelled, alerting the guards. They fled in opposite directions without bounty that they intended to steal, cursing the name that was now permanently etched upon their wrist.

As time passed, the two found themselves going after the same target again and again, and several times, having two thieves at the scene meant that neither successfully made off with what they wanted to steal. They grew angry with fate for cursing them with a soulmate who did nothing but ruin their livelihood, and even angrier with each other, trading creative insults as they ran from angry guards and triggered protective wards.

Eventually, one of them grew tired of eating lean because her soulmate kept showing up and making her job harder and resolved to propose that they try working together. Unfortunately, at around the same time, the other thief realized that she could avoid her soulmate as long as she looked at where her compass was pointing, and went in the opposite direction. 

This worked a little too well, as it turned out. True, she was no longer interrupted by her soulmate rudely trying to take the things she'd rightfully stolen, but she found that she'd grown to used to having her soulmate around that her concentration was shaken when the other wasn't around. She bungled several jobs because she was paying more attention to the compass on her wrist than she was to the security of the places she was robbing.

Frustrated and resigned, she gave up on avoiding her soulmate. Sure enough, the next time she went out on a job, her soulmate was there, furious because the whole soulmate nonsense had been distracting her from her work as well. As soon as they saw each other, they started bickering over who had ruined who's career, pausing only to steal the two vases they had come for, and didn't stop bickering until one thief realized she'd led the other right to her hideout. At that point, she figured she may as well go ahead and propose that they work together, a suggestion that was agreed to much more quickly than she had expected.

Working together, they became legendary within Southern Hoshido, where Orochi grew up, for stealing from the richest nobles with the best security and never getting caught. They worked together for years, usually working together but occasionally going alone to steal trinkets to give to the other. They realized quickly that they made a perfect team professionally, but according to Orochi, it took years for them to figure out that they were very much in love on top of that.

Ryoma likes the story because it shows that people can make the best out of a situation, even when they're dealt a hand that seems less than ideal. It's something that he's been trying to do all his life, ever since he began to truly grasp what being the prince of Hoshido meant.

He also likes that the soulmates in the story did not fall in love from the beginning, but rather woke up one morning after years of building trust and camaraderie and though, _Hmm, that's interesting._ _It appears that I'm in love_.

Soulmates are allegedly not accidental, but falling in love with your soulmate can very well be an accident. Ryoma thinks that maybe there need to be more accidents in the world, hates that he cannot make it so because if he caused them, they wouldn't be accidents.

 

 

Despite being Mikoto's retainer, Orochi is quite young, and when she first starts telling Ryoma stories, she doesn't even have a compass of her own. When she turns twenty, Ryoma has to use all his manners to stop himself from interrupting her at her own party to ask to see the compass. Only the knowledge that he's not actually supposed to be at her party because he's too young stops him.

Luckily for Ryoma, Orochi is very intuitive and is still quite indulgent of Ryoma, even though he's almost a full-blown teenager. As the party is winding down, she looks straight at the curtains Ryoma is mostly-hidden behind and waves him over.

Ryoma goes, embarrassed and expecting to be scolded.

"Happy birthday, Orochi." He says, hoping that being charming would help mitigate the damage of being awake when he should be asleep in in a part of the castle that is very far away from his bed. 

"Thank you Ryoma." Orochi looks flushed and happy, but not drunk like many of the other party guests. She leans down, because Ryoma hasn't hit his growth spurt yet and is still shorter than she is, and whispers, conspiratorially, "Would you like to see my compass?"

Ryoma feels like he should refuse, out of modesty or propriety or some other princely virture that he isn't sure he has, but he finds himself nodding before he can even consider doing the proper thing.

She holds out her left arm and rolls up her sleeve. Her wrist is slim and her compass is even smaller, one of the smallest he's ever seen. He reaches out to touch it before thinking, then stops himself, guiltily. 

Orochi laughs at the conflicted look on his face, fond laughter rather than cruel. "Go ahead, you can touch it. I don't mind."

He runs his fingers lightly over the compass. The surface feels like glass, with a ring of brass around the outside, as if someone had taken a regular compass and embedded it into her arm. The edges of the compass and the arrow shine, the same color as Orochi's hair ornaments. Ryoma notes that the arrow is pointing somewhere in the direction of a crowd of dancers, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Compasses are really quite inconvenient in that they reveal the direction of your soulmate, but not the distance.

"Did it hurt when it appeared?" Ryoma asks, removing his hand.

"No, although I did feel a little bit of tugging on my skin."

"And," Ryoma hesitates. It's considered rude to ask about a person's compass or soulmate in Hoshido unless they're your family or close friend, and even then it's a very private matter. But this is Orochi, and Ryoma's curiosity cannot be quenched. "Do you know who it's pointing to?"

Orochi doesn't seem offended, "Not yet, but I'm not in a hurry. I'm sure my soulmate will appear when the time is right."

 

 

The right time comes a lot sooner than either of them expected, when Orochi's childhood friend Kagero, one of the Hoshidan family's most elite ninjas, returns two days later from leading a training exercise in the mountains for some of the newer Hoshidan ninjas. 

Kagero is a year younger than Orochi and doesn't have a compass yet, but it's clear that when hers does appear, it will point straight to Orochi. Ryoma has rarely seen the two together, as Kagero spends very little time at court between her missions and training new ninjas, but when he does see them together, it's clear to see that Kagero orients herself towards Orochi just as the hand on Orochi's compass orients itself towards Kagero.

Orochi wears armbands and bracelets that cover her compass, but when she's not on duty with Mikoto, she leaves them off. One day she takes Ryoma with her to watch Kagero train with the new recruits, and the sun glinting off her compass almost hurts Ryoma's eyes.

Watching the ninjas is fascinating. Ryoma has been practicing katana for years, the the ninjas' shuriken move even faster than his katanas can. Even more impressive, they way they move makes their very bodies into weapons. When Ryoma was younger, he dreamed of becoming a ninja, but now he is content to watch, and very glad that they are on his side.

Two ninjas in particular catch his eye as they spar. One has green hair and a face that seems too soft and beautiful to be deadly, and the other has red hair and a face that could be gorgeous or hideous because it is halfway hidden behind a mask. They seem fairly equally matched at first, although eventually he sees that the red haired ninja is almost always on the offensive and the green haired ninja is just very good at dodging. Finally, the red haired ninja gets a hand on the green haired ninja, and in an instant they are on the ground, the red haired ninja's hand at the green haired ninja's throat.

"Very good, Saizo," Kagero says, addressing the red-haired ninja. "But you need to watch your own openings. You focused so much on pressing Kaze until he made a mistake that you left your right side open several times."

"Kaze," she turns to the green-haired ninja. "Your stamina and speed is impressive, but you need to learn to read your opponent so that when an opening is available, you will know when to take it."

Kaze picks himself up off the group and smiles at the red-haired ninja. "Good match, brother."

It is impossible to tell for sure because of the mask, but Saizo does not appear to be smiling back. Ryoma watches as he continues to spar, easily disarming and defeating every opponent he faces except for Kagero, who takes advantage of his open right side when he presses forward for the kill.

"You're dead." Kagero tells him, wooden shuriken pressing into his ribs. "And the Saizo bloodline is ended, all because you got a little impatient."

Saizo looks like he is about to say something angry in response, but he restrains himself and stalks off when Kagero dismisses them for the day and walks over to Ryoma and Orochi.

"I hope you enjoyed watching our training regimen, milord?" Kagero addresses the question to Ryoma, but shoots a quick smile at Orochi.

"I did!" Ryoma confirms enthusiastically. "Kagero, that red-haired ninja. Is he part of  _the_ Saizo clan?"

The Saizo name is famous-or infamous, depending on who you ask-for belonging to a clan of ninjas whose skill, loyalty, and ruthlessness are unrivaled throughout Hoshido and perhaps the world. The Saizo family has served Ryoma's family for four generations,, and their work had helped protect the Hoshidan throne from countless assassination and  coup attempts.

"Yes, although he still has a long way to go." Kagero tells him. "He has the raw talent, but his temper may be a problem, especially when he begins to take missions for the royal family."

Kagero and Orochi keep chatting about the ninjas and the weather and the places Kagero saw on her last mission, which has been downgraded from top-secret to just plain secret when all the most important people involved had mysteriously died. Ryoma half listens, half watches the way they gravitate towards each other until he has to leave for his history lesson with one of his many tutors.

* * *

 

Ryoma gets his own retainers when he is fifteen. Orochi recommends to Mikoto that Kagero be considered as one of his retainers, and both Mikoto and Ryoma readily agree. Kagero is fiercely loyal to the royal family as well as being deadly, and Ryoma feels much less like a child playing dress-up in his father's clothes with her by his side.

Traditionally, members of the royal family have two retainers each, so Ryoma is allowed to choose who he would like as his second retainer. Typically, the retainers have different skill sets that complement each other's and that of their lord or lady. It's very rare to have two retainers with the same specialty and fighting style; in fact, such a choice would be considered stupid by some.

Ryoma is not a stupid man, but when it comes time for him to choose his second retainer, he ignores the fact that he probably doesn't need  _two_ ninjas as his retainers and chooses Saizo.

 

 


	2. Xander

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Camilla loves soulmate stories but hates happy endings. Xander hates soulmate stories and doesn't believe in happy endings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really should be focusing on my fic for the Xanlow fic exchange because the reveal date is coming up quickly, but I've been writing bits and pieces of that fic on my phone for a week now, and I needed to switch it up a little (not a lot though, both that fic and this one are super focused on Xander). I'll go back to working on my Xanlow fic soon, but I wanted to add a little bit to this story, which is listed in my drafts as "that soulmate AU mess you started" because I was very excited about it when I first started it and I want to get something down on it so I don't just let it trail off after one chapter.
> 
> Anyway that's a lot of words to say here is a short chapter about Xander and the Nohrian siblings and their strange childhood. I promise that once I have the time to keep working on this story, things other than rambling about the royal families' childhoods will actually happen soon!

 

Xander and his siblings’ childhood is not what you would call idyllic. Their father is alternatively doting and distant and their mothers either dead or live in the concubine’s chambers in a distant wing of the castle, so Camilla takes on the motherly role at a young age. Every night, they gather on her bed and she reads them stories from the castle’s vast library. Listening to Camilla read with all his siblings (sans Corrin, who is confined to the Northern Fortress for reasons as unchangeable as they are inscrutable) is one of Xander’s favorite memories, and one of his only memories that approaches a normal childhood.

Xander hates soulmate stories, but Camilla loves them and she is the reader, so she gets to choose the books. But Camilla does not like happy endings so they grow up hearing about all the way soulmates can go wrong.

 

 

One of Camilla’s favorite stories is about an assassin who finds her soulmate while she is on an assignment. She realizes just as she is raising her arm to slit her target’s throat that she is about to kill her soulmate, but it is too late to stop the motion, and as her soulmate falls to the floor, her compass stops moving. It remains frozen for years, a reminder that every time she completes a job, she is killing someone else’s soulmate. 

She retires early, for an assassin, and settles into a quiet life running a tea shop in the bad part of a town near the southern border of Nohr, between a liquor store and a brothel. She is not happy, but she has stopped wondering what her life would be like if her soulmate had lived.

One day, as she’s closing up shop, the hand on her compass begins to spin wildly, before pointing at her back door. It bursts open, and the last thing she sees is a hand holding a knife, and a wrist bearing a compass pointing straight at her.

 

“Isn’t it a beautiful story?” Camilla sighs rapturously.

“It’s grotesque.” Xander says with distaste. “There’s no need to romanticize violence with this soulmate nonsense.”

“I appreciate the irony in the story, at least.” Leo says, obviously trying to show off that he has learned a new word recently.

“I thought soulmates were supposed to make each other happy!” Elise whines. “You’re not supposed to hurt the people you love.”

“Sometimes violence and love are one and the same.” Camilla says.

 

 

Leo’s favorite story is about a man who despairs of ever finding his soulmate, because no matter where he goes, his compass always seems to be pointing behind him. Convinced that he is  somehow a marvelous novelty, he studies soulmate lore, trying to determine whether his compass could somehow be defective in its movements. Eventually he resolves to set off on a journey to find his soulmate, only to find himself turning in circles as soon as he sets out. 

Finally, he realizes that his compass was not pointing backwards at all, but rather at himself. 

 

“Of course you like that story, you're just as vain as the man in it.” Xander teases.

“You don’t have the right to call anyone vain until you can go a day without your hair products.” Leo retorts. 

“Maybe it would be best if you two were your own soulmates,” Camilla remarks. “Then no one else would have to be subjected to your nonsense.”

“Noooo, Xander and Leo have to have soulmates!” Elise declares. “Otherwise they’ll be lonely.”

“I don’t need a soulmate, Elise.” Xander says, ruffling her hair. “I’ll never be lonely as long as I have you all.”

 

 

Elise’s favorite story is one about two siblings, a brother and a sister, whose compasses point to each other; she likes it because she is too young to realize that incest is generally frowned upon and it is one of the only stories Camilla will read that has a happy ending. Camilla tolerates the happy ending because the story itself is subversive, and hearing it makes Leo squirm.

 

“Elise,” Leo says, voice tight. “You do know that siblings cannot get married, right?”

“Why not?” Elise asks. “If they love each other, what’s the problem?”

“It is just not done, Elise.” Xander says in a firm voice, trying to end the conversation before Leo explodes. 

“What’s wrong with siblings being soulmates?” Camilla says. “No one said soulmates have to be romantic lovers. Remember the story about the soulmates who started the War of Ashes and killed each other in single combat?”

“Yes, that’s much healthier than incest, soulmates who kill each other.” Leo retorts.

 

 

Xander does not have a favorite soulmate story because he does not like soulmate stories, does not like the idea of soulmates in general. Some of the stories had promise, like the one about the boy who did not have a compass, or the one about the girl who was in love with someone who was not her soulmate, so she took a knife and dug her compass out of her arm. But then the boy turned out to be a late bloomer and the girl’s wound grew infected to the point where she had to cut off her entire hand, a fitting punishment for daring to defy the universe which had granted her a soulmate.

 

“Why don’t you like soulmates, big brother?” Elise asks him. “Don’t you like knowing that somewhere out there is someone who’s perfect for you?”

“I am the crown prince of Nohr, I don’t have time for soulmate nonsense.” Xander says. “Eventually I will marry a suitable woman and produce an heir, as is my duty. Soulmates have nothing to do with it.” 

“Ignore him, Elise.” Camilla says. “He doesn’t have a romantic bone in his body.” 

“Romance is a luxury.” Xander retorts. “One that is not afforded to royalty like us.” 

“That’s the great thing about soulmates!” Elise tells him, unshakably sunny. “Everyone gets one, even the prince of Nohr!” She giggles. “I wonder who daddy’s soulmate is?”

Leo scoffs. “Not any of our mothers.” He says, bitterly.

 

 

Xander does not like the idea of soulmates because it does not feel like a gift from the universe, as Elise claims, but rather yet another form of control. He already has no choice in what his future will look like, in where he goes or how he behaves. He does what he has to as the prince of Nohr, and that’s fine, but the universe trying to control who he falls in love with just feels like one step too far.

Especially since, knowing the situation he is in as someone whose marriage could be a political move, he will most likely not be able to marry his soulmate anyway.

 

When Xander turns 14, his father assigns two retainers to him. They are older than him, but loyal, kind, and talented fighters, and Xander is honored to have them. They also just happen to be each other’s soulmates.

Xander hates soulmates, but he loves his retainers, and the love and respect with which they treat each other almost makes him consider that this soulmate thing might not be all bad. It even seems to aid them on the battlefield, as they fight all the more fiercely for having their soulmate by their sides. 

But then they die, one of them taking a sword to the chest in order to save Xander and the other taken down by an arrow as he sprinted over to his soulmate, barely too late to prevent the sword from piercing her breast. They fall together, compasses pointing at each other even in death, and Xander is left alone. 

Xander is only 18 when his first retainers die, but he swears to himself that even if he does have soulmate, he will not seek them out, will not risk falling in love with someone only to see them die for him.

Of course, it’s not a given that his soulmate would die in battle, or die at all, but Xander is not about to take that risk. None of the stories his family tells ever have happy endings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for reading! I'm still trying to work out this whole soulmate AU that doesn't quite use soulmate AU tropes thing, so if you have any comments, suggestions, questions, anything at all, feel free to leave me a comment-I try to reply to pretty much every comment I get because I want people to know just how much I appreciate each and every comment (which is a lot, because I never show my writing anywhere else, so I live for internet validation)!

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still very new to this whole soulmate AU schtick, and I'm also new to writing Fire Emblem Fates fic, although Ryoma/Saizo and Xander/Laslow and other pairings have been stuck with me for months now. The point is, I would love any kinds of comments/questions/suggestions, so if you have any, please drop me a comment!
> 
> (Oh, and also-I tend to write fic at night when I'm very tired, if you see any typos or other mistakes please let me know!)


End file.
